Rerelease | When Abusers Play the Victim to Make You Feel Guilty

Brandon Chadwick (0:00): On this episode of narcissist apocalypse q and a, we talk about victim playing abusers and empathy based guilt. Welcome to narcissist apocalypse q and a, everyone. I am Brandon Chadwick. And today, we are going to be talking about victim playing and guilt. But before we get to this episode, if you want to be a guest on our survivor story episodes, please do go to our website at narcissistapocalypse.com.

Brandon Chadwick (0:48): Top of the page, there's a button that says guest form. When you click on that button, it takes you to our guest form page. There you can read all of our instructions and either send us an email at narcissistapocalypse@gmail.com or fill out our guest form and press the submit button. And please do send it in the format that we ask for. So today we are going to be discussing victim playing and guilt.

Brandon Chadwick (1:12): So when it comes to victim playing, the top five reasons someone plays the victim is number one is to control you. Two is to get your empathy based guilt, and we'll get into that very soon. Three is to avoid taking responsibility. Four is to win arguments, and five is to get attention. So I want to define the word guilt first, and then also we're gonna discuss empathy a little as well, and then we're gonna kind of combine them.

Brandon Chadwick (1:47): So guilt is a self conscious emotion involving reflection on oneself, and people may feel guilt or feel guilty for a variety of reasons, including acts that they think they have committed that are wrong, or they might have think they have committed that are wrong because someone can place that inside your head. There could be a failure to do something that they think they should have done and also that can be brought back to someone implanting that in your head as well. And then thoughts that they think are morally wrong as well. So when one person causes harm to another person, guilt is a natural emotional response. And a guilt trip is best defined as the intentional manipulation of another person's emotions to induce these feelings of guilt.

Brandon Chadwick (2:45): And that's when someone is either purposely or unintentionally tries to make someone feel guilty, remorseful, or bad about their decisions or choices. And the guilt trip is crafted to get someone to change how they think, feel, or might act. So when it comes to the word empathy and the term empathy, because we hear that a lot on our show that people have empathy for other people, Empathy is used to describe a wide range of experiences and emotion researchers generally define empathy as the ability to sense other people's emotions coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. And researchers feel that there are two types of empathy. They they differentiate them.

Brandon Chadwick (3:33): There's affective empathy, which refers to sensations and feelings we get in response to other emotions. And this can include mirroring what the person is feeling or just feeling stress when we detect an other person's fear or anxiety. And then there is cognitive empathy, and this refers to our ability to identify and understand other people's emotions. So what is the relationship between guilt and empathy? And in the nineteen sixties, a term was coined empathy based guilt.

Brandon Chadwick (4:06): And it was based on this theory of interpersonal guilt, and it was defined as an intensely unpleasant feeling of disesteem for oneself that results from empathic feeling for someone in distress combined with an awareness of being the cause of that distress. So let's break this down. And if you define this an intense the unpleasant feeling of dis esteem for oneself that results from empathic feeling for someone in distress, if we just kind of cut it off right there and take an example of, let's say an abuser in a victim in a conversation or in an argument where the abuser might be berating you for something and then all of a sudden it looks like you could be leaving and they get the sense that you may be leaving. A victim player might say, oh, you're going to leave me. I see how you're gonna leave me.

Brandon Chadwick (5:01): Everyone in my life always leaves me. They always leave me, and you're just gonna be just like them. You're gonna leave me, I'm gonna be all alone. You're just like them. They play that against you.

Brandon Chadwick (5:14): So they're playing the victim here. And now coming in free from you is this empathy for how bad they always must have had it. Everything has kind of been taken off you and put on to them. And then the other part of this definition is combined with awareness of being the cause of that distress. Now, you know, you had set this boundary and this boundary had been set and you were actually leaving.

Brandon Chadwick (5:41): But now because of their victim playing, are the cause of their distress. And now you're feeling guilt about that. So they got you with this empathy about how they once were. And then on top of that, they make you the issue, which gives you guilt, and all of a sudden you're back in the fold. So that is the best explanation I can give of empathy based guilt.

Brandon Chadwick (6:09): So according to Lundy Bancroft, this is the victim in his book. Why does he do that? And under the different types of abusers, there is one called the victim. And according to Lundy Bancroft, these are the central attitudes that drive the victim. And that is just everyone has done me wrong, especially the woman that I've been involved with.

Brandon Chadwick (6:33): When you accuse me of being abusive, you are joining the parade of people who have been cruel and unfair to me. It proves you're just like the rest. It's justifiable for me to do whatever I feel you are doing to me and even to make it a bit worse to make sure you really get the message of how you are victimizing me. And women who complain of mistreatment by men such as relationship abuse or sexual harassment are anti male and out for blood. And the last one on Lundy Bancroft's list of his, central attitudes for a victim is I've had it so hard that I'm not responsible for my own actions.

Brandon Chadwick (7:12): And we're gonna get into this in a little bit more detail in a second. So now we're going to break this down into three, four sections, which will be, you know, the idealization of a relationship, a devaluation part of the relationship, the discard of the relationship, or if it's not a discard, the, you know breakup of the relationship because you might be leaving them and then the post separation abused a part of the relationship as well and within this context of everything we will throw in some things when it has to do with family as well. But in terms of a relationship, what's going to happen here is the victim is going to at first make you a hero in a lot of cases, not every case, but in in most cases, you're gonna be a hero. Idealization stage, you're up on this pedestal. So you're gonna go from hero to complete character assassination, when it comes to victim playing and guilt is going to be their biggest weapon.

Brandon Chadwick (8:16): So at the beginning of a relationship and you're in this idealization phase, a victim playing abuser might paint their exes in a bad light. Abusers usually portray themselves as this innocent, hurt, blameless, wounded soul caught up innocently in the poor behavior of another partner. And that will, you know, really tug on your empathy right there at the beginning of a relationship. You will be sitting there being like, my god, this person has been wronged. I feel bad for them.

Brandon Chadwick (8:52): They might throw in children's stuff in there, how they might not be able to see their children. So victim players will also say that, you know, other people have wronged them, and they'll go into detail. It could be friends. It could be bosses, work. It could be a lot of different things of how someone or some place has wronged them.

Brandon Chadwick (9:12): Childhood abuse, most likely, you know, did happen. If they start mentioning child abuse did happen, that is a real thing probably, and you're gonna give empathy there as well. And then there's also a lot of the feelings that they might be going through such as they might be saying, you might be noticing that they feel like they're not good enough, that they might have low self esteem because of everything that has happened, especially if they've gone through child abuse. And a lot of people want to be a cheerleader for them in these situations. A lot of people wanna give them a chance.

Brandon Chadwick (9:48): You have empathy for the victim playing abuser for everything that they've gone through and and you believe their story and, you know, you're you're kind of just listening and and feeling and you're feeling how they are feeling. And it's someone who might seem like a broken, you know, just they just need help with their broken wing. And you are someone who is just a good person and wants to give them a chance and you want to be their cheerleader and help fix what has happened. And that's kind of where they can really grab you at the beginning of a relationship. And in response to that, you know, you might become their hero, and they might be saying stuff like how very thoughtful you are.

Brandon Chadwick (10:39): No one has ever treated me the way you are. Everyone else is so terrible. Look how amazing you are. And they really start to butter up these things about how great you are in comparison to the everything that came before. And you really start to get caught up in this whirlwind of it.

Brandon Chadwick (11:01): You know, the victim player is great at playing the victim, but at the beginning of these relationships, they're also very good at building you up as this person, as this hero, as the savior, as someone that they can't live without. And eventually, that will be used to, you know, jab at you, but also used to, keep you in the relationship in the long run as well. It can be played on both sides of the coin, and it's a a real big trick of the victim player of how they really grab onto you at the beginning of a relationship, capitalize on your empathy, and build you up only to later on use that empathy as empathy based guilt. And that guilt is gonna play a big reason of why you are really confused within the relationship, apologizing for things that you shouldn't be apologizing for and being made out to be the bad guy when they're the bad person all along. So when it comes to the beginning of this relationship, the idealization phase, there's so many things that are going on, and the laying of this guilt foundation is happening.

Brandon Chadwick (12:17): They are laying the foundation to try to have you, the victim survivor, prove to them your undying love in order to save the relationship, and they're putting the building blocks in place at this time. You were seeing what triggers them. They're showing you how other people did not love them, and they're really trying to show you how much it takes to love someone who is the constant victim player. And they want you to have deep concern for their struggles. That's how they're gonna do it.

Brandon Chadwick (12:53): They're gonna play upon your empathy. They're gonna play upon then you're using that empathy as empathy based guilt, and you're gonna be in this relationship trying to show how much you love them, and they're gonna want you to love them in their way. They're not gonna love you. They want to be loved in their way. It is very self centered.

Brandon Chadwick (13:16): They are only capable of seeing their own hurt, and they will play the victim the whole entire way even though they are the ones causing every single problem. So when it comes to the devaluation process and things that we're gonna kind of fit into this category, the first thing I had on my list was something that can have a building block that was set up in the idealization phase. And this is, just a phrase I was once cheated on. And they could be talking about many different partners. So using that victim playing line right there, they might then, while the devaluation process is going on, really start to have jealousy start showing.

Brandon Chadwick (14:06): They might start texting you all the time, and this can also possibly happen in in the idealization phase as well. But they will use this victim playing excuse to start creating this like cell around you, this prison around you, and and jealousy is is a big part of that. And so they can text you all the time where your whereabouts are. They might have you start cutting off men from your relationships or if this is a woman doing it to a man they'll have you start cutting off your female friends. They're going to be really playing the victim here.

Brandon Chadwick (14:38): They're going be playing on the empathy for what they went through with all that cheating. You don't want them to have to feel that way. All of a sudden you start feeling guilty for hanging out with these other people. And now you have this kind of little prison cell right there. So that's one thing that can happen when it comes to a victim player.

Brandon Chadwick (14:55): So another one that is closely related to this is if a victim player early on the relationship states that they don't have a lot of friends. They could have been bullied a lot growing up. They were never able to have, you know, established relationships. And later on in life, they're just not good at maintaining any sort of friendship. So they might be doing things by themselves or just staying at home.

Brandon Chadwick (15:19): They don't like to go and do what you want to do. Whenever you're trying to have free nights to yourself, you might get a guilt trip that they are home alone. They might not say that they're, upset by you going but you can tell that they are acting in a way where victim playing is going on And over time, this can get you to stay in in the long run because you do not want them to be alone. So these two right here at the beginning are starting to create a an isolation tactic where you're not going out as much in a little bit of a prison is being built around you as far as the victim playing goes, and they're very good at creating that prison without even looking like they're doing anything abusive, at all. They're just playing the victim.

Brandon Chadwick (16:15): That's how they're doing it. So when it comes to the devaluation stage and victim playing, sometimes you'll hear these specific statements, and these are probably the most common ones, which are you just don't understand me. And when that is said, you might have empathy for them never feeling understood. And at that point, you might start having less agency over your feelings in how you are feeling, and you really go into trying to understand who they are. A victim player might say something like this relationship is destroying me.

Brandon Chadwick (16:52): And what they're doing here is that they're implying that you are the culprit in this destruction. And that is meant to, you know, play on your guilt, also play on the fixer. If you're the problem here, then you're going to be the one that has to fix it. And as we stated before, when it comes to the building blocks of a relationship and the building blocks of the laying the foundation of the guilt of this relationship, the abuser is gonna try to make it that you will love them in the way that they want to be loved. So if they're gonna imply that you are the one destroying this relationship, they're gonna figure out how you are gonna be the one to fix it and love them in the way that they want to be loved.

Brandon Chadwick (17:39): So that statement might only be five words long. This relationship is destroying me, but those five words carry a lot of weight. Another statement that you might hear a very sarcastic ones or passive aggressive comments like glad you're finally paying attention to me and right there like that also glad you're finally paying attention to me. It might not be very long but that can really play on your guilt and all of a sudden you're gonna try to love them the way that they want to be loved and then you'll start to try and fix the situation. And then another one that they might say is I do so much for you, so you should do this for me.

Brandon Chadwick (18:21): Again, this is, you know, them playing a victim and and working on your guilt. And, again, you're gonna try and love them and do these things in the way that they want them done. So they really just want you to go above and beyond what is possible, and they will never be satisfied. And another statement that they might use against you is a kind of a kernel of a truth or bringing up a past mistake if you can consider it a mistake. Like they can say like, you know, you never do anything good for me just like that time you forgot to bring the eggs home that I asked you to get, and you forgot them because you don't care about me.

Brandon Chadwick (19:03): And that brings in a kernel of truth right there. And then all of a sudden, you know, again, you're gonna try and overdo things to give them the love that they want, and they're bringing up something in the past that was an honest slip up. Everyone forgets something all the time. I forget what I had for lunch, you know, and this one right here is is a pretty big statement to do something like that. Bring up past mistakes with a kernel of truth because that kernel of truth is attached to it.

Brandon Chadwick (19:31): So there's something tangible there for you to kinda hang on. Yeah. I did do that. And now they're playing the victim and boom. Again, once again, you're overdoing things for them.

Brandon Chadwick (19:41): So another thing that a victim player abuser might do is they might make you responsible for their anger. So you might hear things like it was your fault I hit you, or it was your fault I yelled at you. So all of a sudden, even though that they were the person who was abusive, they put you in the position of being the abuser. So they're really making you responsible for the situation. So this paints the victim as the problem causer of the relationship, and it causes the victim to second guess themselves.

Brandon Chadwick (20:20): So what they're really doing here is avoiding responsibility as a whole. Everything they're doing is now your fault. They are the victim of you. They're doing everything they can to avoid responsibility. An abuser will tell you stories about how angry that the victim made them and that their anger was justified by their partner's action.

Brandon Chadwick (20:44): And when we hear a lot of stories of abuse and or survivor stories, a lot of the time you will hear how a victim, a survivor of abuse will often stress how hard they work to prevent their abuser from getting angry or to be in a position of anger. So here is something where the actual victim of the abuse is taking it on as their responsibility in this situation. So another tactic in this devaluation stage is when an abuser is manipulating their partner to make them happy. And you might hear the words, if you cared about me, you would do this for me. And this plays on the love, on the happiness, and a victim will really work tirelessly to make the abuser happy and really become guilt ridden if they fail in the process.

Brandon Chadwick (21:45): And a victim playing abuser will cycle through approval and disapproval of the victim's attempts in order to keep them chasing this dangling carrot. Because as we said before, no matter how much you love them, it will never be enough. And another type of tactic that is used in this victim playing abuser type, is that they can have a lot of different sicknesses. And we've done an episode once on Munchausen by proxy, Munchausen syndrome by proxy, and when where that is a form of child abuse, where the caretaker of a child is, making up fake symptoms or causes real symptoms to make it look like their child is sick because they like being the victim. They like the attention that they get.

Brandon Chadwick (22:34): And that's the same when it comes to regular Munchausen syndrome, which is a factitious disorder. And that is where someone is repeatedly, you know, having physical or mental kind of issues, or they are pretending to be sick in order to gain, empathy from other people. And it's used to get attention, get empathy, so you feel guilt for guilty toward them, and then you might actually start doing things for them because they're always sick. You feel bad for them when it comes to the victim playing abuser. And we've also heard different stories of of not just small sicknesses, people faking cancer, people faking lots of different things.

Brandon Chadwick (23:17): So another tactic on our list that a victim playing abuser might use is defensive abuse, and other people might call it reactive abuse. We are trying to use the term defensive abuse. So this occurs when the victim survivor reacts to the abuse that they are experiencing, and the victim survivor may yell, toss things, shout out some insults, or even lash out physically at the abuser. And the abuser then retaliates by telling the victim survivor that they are in fact the abuser. And the victim survivor in this situation is really just creating like a defense, and they're reacting to the abuse of the real abuser in this situation.

Brandon Chadwick (23:58): So what happens here is they've switched roles and all of a sudden the victim survivor might feel that they are the actual abuser and they could feel bad for what they have just done. And it's been a complete flip in this situation, and it's really can play with someone's mind when you're a victim survivor when this happens because all of a sudden there's this real tangible thing that you can hold on to that can be seen that you did, you know, react in this way. You did defend yourself in this way, and that can be then used against you. And it's a it's a flip. It's a form of gaslighting in in a lot of ways, and it's a real big tactic and trick that a a victim playing abuser can use against you.

Brandon Chadwick (24:47): It's in their arsenal. And when these things happen, this can, you know, go into the pocket of the abuser and they can bring it back later in time saying, remember when this happened, how you reacted when this happened? You know, you're the crazy one. You're the one that needs help. And then they can also use these, you know, defensive reactions as an excuse to go to police or even file protective orders of their own.

Brandon Chadwick (25:13): So it's a real big issue, this one, and victim playing abusers are very good at it. It really is like the ultimate in blame shifting this type of event. So another tactic that can be used in the devaluation stage by a victim playing abuser, And this can also be used in family situations as well. We hear this a lot in family situations is look at how much I've sacrificed for you. And, you know, that immediately puts them into this kind of martyr stage that they've been, you know, doing all these things for you.

Brandon Chadwick (25:52): You might hear the the term ungrateful. It puts the victim playing abuser. It paints them in the light as being wronged by you as they are the victim of you that you might have taken advantage of them, and that in response to that you need to give them more. When it comes to this, a tactic that could be used in response to this is stonewalling. A silent treatment might be going on and in this case when this happens you feel again like you've done something wrong.

Brandon Chadwick (26:27): They're not communicating with you. They're making you feel guilty about something that never existed. And they will do that stonewalling. They will do that silent treatment. They will have you coming to them because you want them to talk, but they're doing their best to make it look like you're the one that has caused the problem and now you're just trying to get them to talk so you can fix it.

Brandon Chadwick (26:53): They've done a really good job of flipping things around here, making you feel guilty, and now they are the victim of you. Another statement that might be used, during the devaluation stage that comes from the victim player is I treated you this way because of how I was raised. So they're not specifically blaming you in this situation, but they are blaming how they were raised. They're not taking responsibility for what they have gone through. And their hope here is that they can then kind of go down this rabbit hole of how they were raised, and you'll start tending to their needs.

Brandon Chadwick (27:37): You'll stop thinking about the abuse that happened to you, And all of a sudden, you're focused on their world and fixing their world because their world and the love that they need is all that matters to them. So another abuse tactic that is used by a victim playing abuser is that they like to one up negative experiences. So if you as an abuse victim are actually having a bad day, This person might say that their experience was worse or you think that's bad. Listen to what's happened to me. Oh, that's nothing.

Brandon Chadwick (28:17): Here's what's going on in my life. Here's what happened to me in my childhood. So they're negating your experience. They're minimizing your experience of maybe this thing that happened to you that day. And they just always have to be this victim, this nonexistent competition that's going on.

Brandon Chadwick (28:35): They have to have their trauma be bigger than that. And in doing so, they're minimizing everything to do with your feelings. Your feelings don't matter in this situation because their trauma, their victim playing takes center stage. And if you try to kind of push back on that, I'm sure what's gonna happen is they'll become a victim somehow in this situation of you not listening to how bad they had it. They're gonna try and then get you to think about these terrible things that they're now talking about in their childhood or how someone has wronged them.

Brandon Chadwick (29:14): Eventually, they'll then get you on their side that you're feeling bad for them. And again this is you know an abuse tactic that is used and it's done in a way where it's just negating how you're feeling and you're not allowed to have your own feelings in a relationship with a victim player because their victim feelings, their victimhood, their trauma takes precedent over everything else. So we've discussed the idealization phase. We've discussed the devaluation phase, and now we're in the breakup phase of the relationship when it comes to a victim playing abuser and possible Hoover attempts that might happen and things that they might say, tactics that they might use or or say. And one of them might be, you weren't strong enough to help me.

Brandon Chadwick (30:01): And that is really playing off of your guilt. And they really want you, the victim survivor, to feel responsible that they couldn't fix the problem of no one loving them enough. And if they can do that, if they can really work on you saying, you know, no one loved me enough and you have failed at loving me enough just like everyone else, they're hoping that that guilt, that empathy, which is empathy based guilt can really set in and that you'll stay in the relationship. Another thing that you might hear during this part of the relationship by a victim playing abuser is I can't live without you. They might make you feel that their life will implode without you.

Brandon Chadwick (30:48): And at this point in the relationship, you might believe a 100% that they cannot live without you, and that plays into your guilt, and that can keep you in this relationship. You know, you notice that they can't do things on their own. They'll they'll start really playing the the helpless person and try to be as pathetic as possible to play off of your guilt. You might hear suicide talk at this time, self harm talk at this time, which will also play on your guilt to stay in this relationship that they really can't live without you. They don't wanna live in this world without you.

Brandon Chadwick (31:21): Plays on your guilt, keeps you in this relationship. They might say, how can you do this to me to play off the guilt? If you have a family, they might say, how can you rip our family apart? That is a massive guilt play by a victim playing abuser. Other things that you might hear during this time is I'm constantly a burden.

Brandon Chadwick (31:49): I'm dumb. I'm a terrible person. They're really playing off of your guilt. They want you to come in and rescue this situation. Oh, you're not a terrible person.

Brandon Chadwick (31:58): Oh, you're not a burden. Oh, you're not dumb. Oh, you didn't screw up. You know, they really will try to play the guilt on that. Play the victim of it that they are less than.

Brandon Chadwick (32:11): You know, they might not have done that early on during the devaluation stage, but when it comes to you trying to kind of leave a situation or stand up for yourself or have a boundary sometimes in these situations, they might go this route and and to keep you in the relationship or to hoover you back into this relationship. So another thing that a victim playing abuser might do to keep you in the relationship at the end, and this can also be parents as well who don't want you to leave the home or have any sort of autonomy, which is, oh, I'm all alone. Nobody loves me. Nobody ever has. Nobody ever will.

Brandon Chadwick (32:51): That's okay. Nobody loves me. I'll live my life alone. Okay. I can be alone.

Brandon Chadwick (32:58): I'm alone. And they can really play off of that being alone, really getting to you, really getting pulling on your empathy for them, not having anyone that loves them, that they will never have anyone that loves them. And again, that could play into your your empathy based guilt, and this is something that can keep you in a situation instead of breaking up. And then when it comes to post separation abuse, when it comes to a victim player, A victim player can be a victim in court where they will really do their best to paint to the court how much you have, abused them and they'll really play that up. Another thing that can go on in post separation abuse with a victim playing abuser is that the children get stuck in the middle and one of the parents is really playing the victim.

Brandon Chadwick (33:49): And they might really be trying to portray the victim survivor as someone who is terrible to the children. Look what your your mom or dad has done to me. Look how down on my luck I'm poor because of your mom or your dad. Things along those lines which really make a villain out of one of the parents and and the children really, really start to empathize with the victim playing parent, and it's a really toxic and disgusting thing that they do. So another thing a victim playing abuser will use in post separation abuse is a smear campaign.

Brandon Chadwick (34:29): And that is when they are telling everyone else that they are the victim and that the victim survivor is the abuser. And it is a really despicable thing to do. They're revictimizing the victim survivor, and it's absolutely disgusting. And they're just trying to control the narrative of of what is going on. They're creating false rumors about the relationship, about the partner, on why it ended.

Brandon Chadwick (34:57): And it's just a way to turn other people, against the actual abuse survivor. And then this pretty much brings it back to the beginning in a lot of ways because a lot of the times the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning. And if they eventually once again find a new partner, they'll find a new partner, you know, they will tell them that they are the victim of a relationship. At this time, it was you, and they will gain that next person's trust only to, you know, have this cycle repeated over and over and over again. You know, also a little bit of an offshoot of a smear campaign, part of the smear campaign, a term that was coined by Jennifer Joy Frade, and she coined a term called DARVA, which stands for deny, attack, reverse, victim, and offender.

Brandon Chadwick (35:50): And that is pretty much what's going on inside a smear campaign. And, you know, you see a lot of this when court cases that this is a term that is used. And if you're going through a court case right now, if you're just going through abuse, you're in it, you're out. You know, I hope this episode, resonated with you. You found it educational.

Brandon Chadwick (36:11): My heart goes out to all of you who are, who have gone through it, who are dealing with it right now. And I really just hope that you found this episode useful and helpful. And, you know, that's our episode for today about victim playing, victim playing abusers, empathy, guilt. And I really do hope that you enjoyed it. And if you want to be a guest on our survivor story episodes, please do go to our website at narcissistapocalypse.com.

Brandon Chadwick (36:40): Top of the page, there's a button that says guest form. When you click on that button, it takes you to our guest forum page. There you can read all of our instructions and either send us an email at narcissistapocalypsegmail dot com or fill out our guest form and press the submit button. And please do read all the instructions and send it in the format that we ask for. Also at our website, we have our very own support group.

Brandon Chadwick (37:03): So if you need support, go to our website at narcissistapocalypse.com. Top of the page, there's a button that says support group. When you click on that button, it takes you to our very own safe social network where you will see that we have zoom meetings every Wednesday night, Thursday afternoons, and Saturday nights. Have form boards for you to post on to get the validation that you need and to validate other survivors as well. Is at narcissistapocalypse.com.

Brandon Chadwick (37:26): Top of the page, there's a button that says support group. Click on it, and we will see you there today. And if you need even more support, please do visit our friends at domesticshelters.org. There, they have articles and resources to help you make sense of what you're going through. They have every website, every phone number, every email address for shelters and agencies, no matter how big or small the town you are in, domesticshelters.org has it there.

Brandon Chadwick (37:54): So please do visit them today. It's a great organization and group of people. And that is it for today's show. And I hope you have a good night.